`Only it is so VERY lonely here!' Alice said in a melancholy voice; and at the thought of her loneliness two large tears came rolling down her cheeks.
`Oh, don't go on like that!' cried the poor Queen, wringing her hands in despair. `Consider what a great girl you are. Consider what a long way you've come to-day. Consider what o'clock it is.
Consider anything, only don't cry!'
Alice could not help laughing at this, even in the midst of her tears.
`Can YOU keep from crying by considering things?' she asked.
`That's the way it's done,' the Queen said with great decision:
`nobody can do two things at once, you know. Let's consider your age to begin with--how old are you?'
`I'm seven and a half exactly.'
`You needn't say "exactually,"' the Queen remarked: `I can believe it without that. Now I'll give YOU something to believe.
I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day.'
`I can't believe THAT!' said Alice.
`Can't you?' the Queen said in a pitying tone. `Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.'
Alice laughed. `There's no use trying,' she said: `one CAN'Tbelieve impossible things.'
`I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen.
`When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day.
Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!'
The brooch had come undone as she spoke, and a sudden gust of wind blew the Queen's shawl across a little brook. The Queen spread out her arms again, and went flying after it, and this time she succeeded in catching it for herself. `I've got it!' she cried in a triumphant tone. `Now you shall see me pin it on again, all by myself!'
`Then I hope your finger is better now?' Alice said very politely, as she crossed the little brook after the Queen.
* * * * * * ** * * * * *
* * * * * * *`Oh, much better!' cried the Queen, her voice rising to a squeak as she went on. `Much be-etter! Be-etter! Be-e-e-etter!
Be-e-ehh!' The last word ended in a long bleat, so like a sheep that Alice quite started.
She looked at the Queen, who seemed to have suddenly wrapped herself up in wool. Alice rubbed her eyes, and looked again.
She couldn't make out what had happened at all. Was she in a shop? And was that really--was it really a SHEEP that was sitting on the other side of the counter? Rub as she could, she could make nothing more of it: she was in a little dark shop, leaning with her elbows on the counter, and opposite to her was an old Sheep, sitting in an arm-chair knitting, and every now and then leaving off to look at her through a great pair of spectacles.
`What is it you want to buy?' the Sheep said at last, looking up for a moment from her knitting.
`I don't QUITE know yet,' Alice said, very gently. `I should like to look all round me first, if I might.'
`You may look in front of you, and on both sides, if you like,' said the Sheep: `but you can't look ALL round you--unless you've got eyes at the back of your head.'
But these, as it happened, Alice had NOT got: so she contented herself with turning round, looking at the shelves as she came to them.
The shop seemed to be full of all manner of curious things--but the oddest part of it all was, that whenever she looked hard at any shelf, to make out exactly what it had on it, that particular shelf was always quite empty: though the others round it were crowded as full as they could hold.
`Things flow about so here!' she said at last in a plaintive tone, after she had spent a minute or so in vainly pursuing a large bright thing, that looked sometimes like a doll and sometimes like a work-box, and was always in the shelf next above the one she was looking at. `And this one is the most provoking of all--but I'll tell you what--' she added, as a sudden thought struck her, `I'll follow it up to the very top shelf of all. It'll puzzle it to go through the ceiling, I expect!'
But even this plan failed: the `thing' went through the ceiling as quietly as possible, as if it were quite used to it.
`Are you a child or a teetotum?' the Sheep said, as she took up another pair of needles. `You'll make me giddy soon, if you go on turning round like that.' She was now working with fourteen pairs at once, and Alice couldn't help looking at her in great astonishment.
`How CAN she knit with so many?' the puzzled child thought to herself. `She gets more and more like a porcupine every minute!'
`Can you row?' the Sheep asked, handing her a pair of knitting-needles as she spoke.
`Yes, a little--but not on land--and not with needles--'
Alice was beginning to say, when suddenly the needles turned into oars in her hands, and she found they were in a little boat, gliding along between banks: so there was nothing for it but to do her best.
`Feather!' cried the Sheep, as she took up another pair of needles.
This didn't sound like a remark that needed any answer, so Alice said nothing, but pulled away. There was something very queer about the water, she thought, as every now and then the oars got fast in it, and would hardly come out again.
`Feather! Feather!' the Sheep cried again, taking more needles. `You'll be catching a crab directly.'
`A dear little crab!' thought Alice. `I should like that.'
